Federation Council terminates powers of FC member Vitaly Malkin

March 27, 2013, 10:53 UTC+3Malkin has made the resignation statement on the wave of the scandal when the mass media accused him of having dual Russian-Israeli citizenship

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MOSCOW, March 27 (Itar-Tass) – The Federation Council upper house of the Russian parliament on Wednesday terminated the powers of FC member from Buryatia Vitaly Malkin. The house made the decision after Malkin's statement that he was stepping down. The FC member resigned on the wave of the scandal when the mass media accused him of having dual Russian-Israeli citizenship.

Despite his resignation statement, Malkin dismissed all the accusations. The former FC member has claimed he gave up Israeli citizenship back in 2007, that he has no business in Canada and that an apartment in New York belongs not to him but to his son, who is an entrepreneur.

Malkin said the "attention" he had been given was part of the defamation campaign against him funded from abroad. He expressed confidence that the Hermitage Capital foundation and its director William Browder were behind the campaign /because of Malkin's active attempts to persuade U.S. senators not to pass the Magnitsky Act /to this end, a FC delegation led by Malkin went to the U.S. Congress last year/.

"I tendered my resignation only because the attacks on me in the mass media reached such a degree and frequency that I don't want this unworthy campaign, from my point of view, to blemish the Federation Council and its members; it's a very important point in the life of our country when we have to strengthen state institutions and take care of the parliament's image," Malkin said in comments on his decision at the Tuesday meeting of the FC commission for monitoring the authenticity of FC members' property declarations.

The upper house of the Russian parliament officially terminated Malkin's powers on March 25.